July 11, 2010

About a year ago I went to a conference inSan Francisco. I was walking back to my hotel with a friend when a woman stepped into my path and confronted me. She was quite disheveled from living on the streets, had missing teeth, and yet was probably only in her thirties She was very desperate. She asked me for money. When I said no politely, she persisted. She frantically begged me for money, telling me that she was pregnant and she needed me to help her now! My friend was silent, and I think grateful that the woman had chosen me to focus on and not her. I said again, I'm sorry I cannot help you and I made a decision to walk away. My friend said that I responded so calmly. I told her that it was a devastating encounter. It took me several days and many conversations with myself before I was not haunted by her challenge - help me now!

This is the subsequent conversation I had with myself for the days that followed: I feel that I am a giving person. I work in a service profession where it is my job to care about people's welfare. I ticked off all the ways that I have helped people: served a meal, arranged for kids to get backpacks, adults to eat, helped to organize a successful fund-raiser for a droop-in center for homeless women, etc. I have a personal policy not to hand out money on the streets and I'm a big believer in supporting agencies that both serve the poor and offer a broader range of services to support them beyond just a meal.

What haunted me - in addition to her desperation - was the question What claim does this woman have on me as a person of faith? Am I doing enough so that when I lay my head on my pillow at night I can sleep peacefully? And, more importantly, is my offering acceptable to God?

In the story of the Good Samaritan I think the lawyer gets kind of a bad rap. He is the one who initiates the telling of the parable by asking Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him what the Law says and the lawyer quotes the teaching from Deuteronomy that tells us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus tells him that he got it right, so now go and do this. The lawyer then asks the question that makes him look like a bean counter, but is actually the question that many of us wrestle with - but who is my neighbor? How far and how deep must my compassion extend? Beyond my family, my tribe, my community?

The fact that Jesus doesn't answer his question, but goes on to tell a story, might suggest that he is dismissive of the lawyer. I don't think that is the case at all. I think it teaches us about who Jesus is and what a life of faithful living is all about. A life of faithful living is not about quotas or percentages. It's about something else.

You will notice that Jesus doesn't answer the question directly. Instead he tells us a story so that we can wrestle with the question ourselves and apply it to our lives. He invites us to work through our own response to the question and he gives us some things to guide us in our reflection. First, by giving us a story with six main characters, we have different people whom we can identify with: we have people who do not stop and help because they are: too busy, to cautious about the circumstances, too dutiful in their own lives, or maybe not wanting to associate with the person who is so hurt. He wants us to notice that the person who actually stopped - who acted as a true neighbor to bandage, clean, carry and pay for the person who needed help - was someone who had friction with the ethnic background of the person he helped. We are meant to notice this detail. From the book Parables from the Back Side we hear, "As surely as you harbor ill feelings against some ethnic, racial, or intellectual group, or some particular class of people, you can expect that someday, somehow God will allow such a person to touch your life in some strange and helpful way. The good Samaritan so often is bad news to our preferences and our prejudices." (by J. Ellsworth Kalas, p. 15)

So, first of all, Jesus doesn't give us a clear answer but instead gives us an example of what a neighbor might look like, replete with tension and friction.

The second question that we are asking along with our lawyer friend is How much is enough? When the parable ends by telling us that the neighbor is the one who shows mercy? and that we are to go and do likewise, how much mercy are we suppose to show? Again, great time for Jesus to spell it out for us - two small acts of kindness per day, one big act per week, one major event each year? but Jesus resists percentages and amounts, just like he was resisting strict adherence to the Law of his time. When it comes to compassion, Jesus is no bean-counter. His response is more of an orientation or an attitude toward others. His response is about having eyes of faith to see the man in the ditch as someone worthy of helping no matter what his story or background is.

Earlier in chapter 10 of Luke's Gospel we hear that Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to minister and spread the word of God's love. In that earlier story he didn't give them quotas either. He didn't give them the sale's pitch to knock on 20 doors each day, baptize 10 people each week, get 50 names per month for your address book. No, instead, the instructions read like this: live simply, take very little with you, bring peace to each household you enter, receive hospitality that is offered, cure those you can, and when people do not welcome you, shake the dust off and move on - don't overstay your welcome! Jesus did not build the early church with a marketing plan! He built it with guidelines and teachings that demand that we think and interpret and apply the Gospel to our lives and our day.

Married couple Reva and Vineet Nayyar live in New Delhi, India. Reva has over 30 years logged in the Indian Civil service and Vineet was on his third successful career in information technology after working in government and the World Bank. They could have comfortably retired. But instead they have used their wealth to build a foundation that funds educational programs around New Delhi. To date, they have donated more than 6.6 million dollars to their foundation that helps to educate others. They have learned that you cannot carry your money beyond the grave and they would rather use their abundance to help others around them. They are part of the growing number of successful Indians who are using their new wealth to benefit others. India is now the 4^th largest country in terms of charitable giving as a percentage of the Gross National product - behind the U.S., the United Kingdom and Canada. They, along with Brazil and China are beginning to change international giving from being predominantly a western affair to an international endeavor. Arpan Sheth who wrote the report says that it took decades for the US and European markets to start giving philanthropically because of a psychology of scarcity. Though Sheth says it is jobs, not philanthropy which will eventually lift India's half billion poor out of poverty, Mr. and Mrs. Nayyar say that people not only need jobs but they need education as well. And that is the area of compassion that they are interested in funding. (Christian Science Monitor, July 5, 2010. p. 22) That sense of scarcity is not only true for philanthropic giving; I think it is operative in how we decide to help others in our own time. We feel somewhere deep down that we will be depleted if we help. We worry that we have only have so much and if we start giving it away, we will experience scarcity. That runs in contrast to our biblical teaching that says over and over, God will provide, we will be provided for, and we are to share our abundance.

So, we may not have 6.6 billion dollars to give but we each have something. Here are a few guidelines for compassionate giving First, just to be clear in advance, are you barely scraping by right now? Are you in a phase in your life where your time is eaten up by children, aging parents, training for your field, a medical concern, whatever? If so, well then maybe the person for you to identify with in the parable today is the person in the ditch!! Not every phase of our lives is one of abundance. Sometimes we are the ones who need to be recipients. Not forever, but perhaps for a while! So, if you feel like you are lying in a ditch of despair, accept the help that is offered for now. If you are not lying in a ditch, then ask yourself - where is your abundance?

Do you have time?
Resources?
Physical energy?
Expertise in something?
An abundance of faith?

What is it that you have? I remember when I was a student pastor years ago in Wilmington North Carolina. I had not grown up in a rural community where people had vegetable gardens. So, when people started sending me home with massive amounts of tomatoes and strawberries, corn, zucchini and other summer vegetables, I had to laugh at their abundance!!! There was so much of it that it was overflowing!! These people were not wealthy in things but they sure had vegetables! Don't think of abundance as just cash. Think of some area of your life that is overflowing and think about how you can use that to give compassionately to someone. So first of all, identify your abundance.

Secondly, what draws and inspires you? Are you interested in people finding homes to live in, are you interested in literacy, or does gardening really interest you? Do you get excited about healthy living or exercise; are you drawn to art, music or policy making? Do you love animals or babies or older folks? Step toward that! Nowhere does it say in the Bible that we have to be miserable in our giving or that we have to pick the area that we hate the most and dwell there. There is a mom on my son's baseball team that loves to cook and feed boys. She will bring enormous amounts of food to a game and keep it hot or cold in her car; after the game is over hot, fresh, comfort food will miraculously appear in the parking lot, laid out on fresh tables, ready to serve 25 boys. Ask my son: chili, tri tip, macaroni and cheese, hot fudge sundaes, you name it. I have never seen this kind of offering. I would rather teach 10 yoga classes then haul all that food to a baseball field! But what a remarkable display of sharing her love for cooking and feeding boys! What is your abundance? Do you cook, sew, crunch numbers well? Do you arrange parties, build things, lead trips, speak a second language? Do you listen well, set a nice table, take pictures, play music? This parable reminds us to find some way to offer that gift to others who need some care. You will notice that the Good Samaritan had the time to take the beaten up man on his animal and take him to an inn and pay for his stay. He didn't take him home, he didn't cook him food, but he arranged for those things to happen and he came back and paid the bill.

Thirdly, when I read the story of the Good Samaritan I do not read anywhere that because he was compassionate he got something in return. Do not expect your caring to score you points! The point is to give, not get something! There is something twisted about people who give with calculation in mind. Remember the parable - the person was hurt, hated and lying in a ditch. There was nothing to gain by helping him. Nowhere is the Samaritan compensated for his care or had his fortunes reversed because of his generosity. So, expect nothing in return! This is a big one for many people. They want to be thanked or praised, or rewarded for their giving. Do it without ego is the biblical model.

Finally, find your limits. There is story after story of people in the Bible who do something - they open their homes, they cook food, they let others glean their fields, they care for widows, they take care of temples. There is an endless array of needs in our world and we don't have to solve every single one of them ourselves. So, be content with the areas that you have identified. Disregard the ten that you cannot do!

Jesus calls us to be compassionate people in this world, looking for ways to heal and care for others with our gifts. But it is not like earning a merit badge - where we check off 8 items and earn our badge. It is an orientation rather than a checklist! The Bible and the teachings of Jesus can be infuriating if we approach them with rigidity in mind. Rather, ask the question as the lawyer did? and be open to the free-flowing story response that Jesus gave him. For living a life of faith is not about adherence to rules, but adherence to a way of being faithful in this world. May God guide you in sharing your abundance. Amen.